Keeping Great Tenants: 4 Tips For Making Tenants Happy

As a landlord, keeping great tenants is the best way to be sure your investment properties make money. Keeping great tenants means making them happy. Here are a few tips for keeping great tenants renting.

Meet them in person

Even if you have a property management company handling your investment properties, meeting your tenants and checking in with them personally will tell them that you are more than just an absent landlord, or some big company that doesn’t care. Putting a face to that check and ownership will make them more apt to keep your property in good shape and keep them renting.

Positive reinforcement

Giving rewards to reinforce the good things your tenants do is a great way to keep tenants happy and renting. For instance, you know it would help you a lot if they paid their rent on or before a specific date or electronically. Give them a small break on the rental, say 1%, if they set up an automatic electronic payment on the same day each month. Voila, you get the rent exactly when you expect it and they don’t have to write and mail a check. Also reward them for being long term tenants. Give small gifts when they re-rent each year. It doesn’t have to be an expensive gift, but something that shows your appreciation and engenders some loyalty from them and helps with keeping great tenants. Your property management company will help with rewards and positive reinforcement.

Rent your property furnished

Furnishing the property doesn’t have to break the bank, and it can mean that you can ask a higher rent for having a furnished property. Same goes for updating the property. Having updates done will mean you can ask for higher rents as well, but it also means you will get the quality of tenant that will stay and care for your property. Sometimes those upgrades may not cost much, but can make the tenant’s life a lot easier. If they are happy, you can keep them renting.

Maintenance items

Be proactive about maintenance, and even include some heavy cleaning items. Things like heavy duty carpet cleaning or making sure filters are kept clean. Tenants will have a cleaner environment to live in and be very happy. It also gets you access to check the property out.

Happy tenants become long term tenants. Long term tenants mean less costs for you to find new tenants all the time, so keep your tenants happy and they will keep renting!